


A Perfectly Ordinary Day

by cinnamonsnaps



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Groundhog Day, M/M, Time Loop, Truth Serum, just sort of a vague au really, keith is black paladin and shiro is just kind of there, keith is stuck in a, set around season 5ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18294839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamonsnaps/pseuds/cinnamonsnaps
Summary: “Lance,” says an urgent voice, and Lance jumps a mile high, turning to stare at Keith, who clearly ran here judging by how wild he looks, how flushed.“Wha- Mullet-”“I love you,” he states, breathlessly, and Lance stares at him, toothpaste dripping out of his mouth, before his brain registers what he's hearing.-Keith is different, suddenly. He's still him, but with something else that Lance can't place, a metamorphosis that occurred seemingly overnight. As a Galra threat looms on the horizon and the Paladins have to make choice after choice, only time will tell if Keith has made the right ones.





	1. Temporary Insanity

**Author's Note:**

> this is a bit of an experiment!!  
> i LOVE time loop fics, but i'm impatient. well, you'll see. lemme know what you think!

It's a perfectly ordinary day. Lance wakes up with the castle, yawning as the lights turn up in brightness, only a few moments before his alarm goes off. He stretches lazily, enjoying the warmth of his bedsheets for a few moments more, before getting up to brush his teeth.

He catches sight of a dark bruise on his leg and winces. Right. Yesterday had been brutal. The Paladins were all frustrated and annoyed with each other, going through boring, easy training over and over again, and he'd sparred with Hunk - languidly, both of them grimacing from how sloppy it was - with Pidge - who gave him a few token hits just to get it over with - and Keith. 

Keith had not only beaten him within seconds. Keith had flown at him with a primordial rage that hadn't surfaced for a long time and flipped Lance over like a chicken fillet, one leg coming hard and fast to unbalance him, strong hands gripping his shoulders, until his world flew backwards and his head hit the mat with a meaty slap. 

 

Maybe it was Lance's fault. Maybe Lance had goaded him a little. Maybe Lance had been bored out of his stupid mind, and the other Paladins just didn't respond as well to a good ribbing, and Keith was  _ there _ and so  _ easy _ to wind up and let out some of this frustration.

Was it worth it? Lance wasn't sure. When he was lying on his back, neck sore, ankle bruised, and Keith was standing over him with his eyes full of burning hellfire, Lance felt like he was about 12 again. 

 

“Perhaps,” Allura had said coldly, surveying the disaster of a training session, “as the main arm of the resistance, you all might learn to take your roles a little more seriously.”

 

Well. That shame still coils in Lance's gut now. Of course he takes it seriously - of course he does - but it's the same every day. It never ends. It feels like he's trapped in time - wake up, train, fight Galra, go to sleep, rinse, repeat. He takes it seriously. He wishes that for one day, he could just  _ not _ . 

Day in, day out. Stuck in a shitty loop. And to top it off, he thinks he's really pissed off Keith this time-

 

“Lance,” says an urgent voice, and Lance jumps a mile high, turning to stare at Keith, who clearly ran here judging by how wild he looks, how flushed. 

“Wha- Mullet-”

“I love you,” he states, breathlessly, and Lance stares at him, toothpaste dripping out of his mouth, before his brain registers what he's hearing. 

“Wh-  _ what? _ Keith?”

“I just needed to tell you.” Is this a practical joke? “And no, it's not a practical joke.” Oh fuck, is Keith ill? “I'm not ill, poisoned, and I haven't banged my head.” Holy quiznack, is Keith reading his mind? “And no, I'm not telepathic. Just-” Keith steps forward, his eyes roaming over Lance's face wildly, a strange, desperate expression lighting it up from within. But he never looks like that when he looks at me, Lance thinks, utterly astounded. He only looks like that when he's flying. 

“Just believe me, Lance. I know you don't right now, but you will. I love you with everything I have, and I don't intend to stop any time soon.” And with that, Keith darts forward, pressing a brief, sweet kiss to Lance's cheek in a display of brazen emotionality that Lance has never even imagined coming from the stoic jerk. “Don't skip breakfast today.”

 

And then he leaves, running out like someone just called his name, leaving Lance, shellshocked, toothpaste all over his shirt, toothbrush dangling loosely in one hand.

“Excuse me?” he says, spitting flecks of foam all over the bathroom, his face a bright, pillarbox red.

 

* * *

As soon as he's cleaned up, Lance runs to the control room. Keith is out of his god damn mind, that's for sure, and he needs to warn Allura or Coran or Shiro, anybody, to wrestle him into a healing pod. Keith has been bodysnatched by a new type of alien. Keith is drugged with some kind of weird chemical which makes him say he loves Lance.

He loves Lance.

He loves-

 

Choking on air, Lance skids into the control room - to find a very sleepy princess and her bemused advisor looking at a starmap of the local area. 

“But there simply isn't a ship called the Neread. I mean, let's be realistic, princess, a time travelling space vessel? It's just a legend made to confound and amuse-”

“Something's going on with Keith,” Lance interrupts, earning a strangely unsurprised look from Allura.

“Yes, there is,” she says thoughtfully. “He woke me up and begged me to look for a ship he thinks will be hailing us soon.”

Coran nods. “Seemed quite insistent! Got himself worked into quite the tizzy before we agreed to look. Wonder what's got a flibble in his flonnegut.”

“He-” Lance begins, his face flushing red again. “He said he- he said weird things to me. I think you should give him a check up, Coran. Immediately. A.S.A.P as possible.”

“Might be an idea.” Coran leaves the princess to examine the map, hand on his chin.”At the very least, we should sit him down and ask what's the matter with him-”

“No time,” Keith's voice interrupts, and what the hell? He's already changed into his Paladin armour? “Lance, go get suited up, and make sure the others are too. Pidge fell asleep in the common room last night, so you should go get them first.”

Lance stares at Keith, wondering why it sounds so natural to hear orders coming from Keith's mouth - like he's some kind of leader. Like he's suddenly got confident overnight. 

“Why? Keith, what's going on?” Allura asks, and Keith just shakes his head. 

“I know it's weird. I promise, after this is all over, I'll sit down and you can do as many health checks and tests as you like to prove whatever you want  - but this is urgent. We all need to be suited and battle ready.”

There’s a moment of quiet, before Coran claps his hands together. “You heard the man! Come on everyone, up and at ‘em!”

 

By the time Lance has changed into his armour, Hunk and Pidge have both been corralled into their own, and soon everyone is standing in a circle, confused and alarmed, as Keith stares at the holo transmission screen. 

“Keith...?” Shiro says mildly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What are we waiting for?”

His voice is gentle but worried, and it's clear he also suspects something is wrong with Keith, but Keith doesn't look annoyed. He just looks determined. 

“You’ll see in approximately two minutes,” Keith replies, which is the most ominous thing Lance has heard him say for weeks. 

“Is it dangerous?”

Keith takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

Hunk shivers with alarm beside Lance. “Uh... is anyone else freaking out right now? Just me? Because I feel like something really bad is going to happen. I mean, I feel like that all the time anyway, but right now more than usual-”

“Can't you tell us more?” Pidge says, frowning. “What kind of danger? Why aren't we trying to fly in the opposite direction, away from the danger? And how does Keith know?”

Lance looks at Keith to ask - but stops, because Keith is staring at him. There's that same focus, that same determination that drives Lance crazy. This is Keith alright. Nobody else could ever nail that kilowatt laser glare.

He loves him. Oh holy fuck, Keith loves him. 

“I trust Keith,” Lance says, avoiding Keith's gaze. “If he says we're in danger, then I believe him.”

The other paladins mull this over. Pidge looks the unhappiest, but eventually they shrug. “Alright. But if this is just a false alarm-”

 

Before they can finish speaking, the holo screen lights up red with an incoming transmission. “S.O.S, S.O.S,” a calm, automated voice reads loudly. “Vessel in distress. Any and all ships in the quarter please respond. S.O.S-”

Allura runs to the control panel, reading something quickly, while Coran turns his attention to the various input screens around the room. 

“It's nearby!” Allura yells. “It's- a Galra transmission. This is a Galra distress signal.” Her voice goes tight and strained. 

“Impossible,” Coran responds, swiping at several different views. “Galra distress signals are encoded differently each movement. We don't have a database for any signal younger than three hundred deca-phoebs!”

Lance looks at Keith, who is watching the princess read. 

“So is it really a Galra, or just someone using a Galra ship?” Pidge chimes in, and Allura's expression hardens.

“It's a trap,” she says, “to lure us in by confusing us. They know that we know that it's an outdated transmission. We should ignore it.”

Keith had looked like he was counting - but now he shakes his head, approaching the princess. 

“We need to respond to it,” he says firmly, looking her in the eye. “Princess, if we don't, we'll- there will be bad consequences.”

Allura looks torn. “What kind of consequences?”

“Letting the whole universe be taken by Zarkon,” he replies steadily, “because Voltron was never there to save it.”

“How do you know it isn't a trap?”

“It is.”

Several cries ring out from the room. “Then why are we responding?” Hunk yells, voice wavering. “Let's  _ not _ do that!”

Allura backs away, fear in her eyes, and for a moment, Lance is right there again - right in the room when Allura found out Keith wasn't quite human. Right when there was only mistrust and resentment. Her expression is the same betrayal, hurt, anger. Keith looks calm. He looks deadly calm, but his hands are shaking. 

“Keith,” she begins, but Keith bows his head and speaks through gritted teeth.

“I don't care what you do to me. Handcuff me. Take away my bayard if you don't trust me, but please, I'm begging, answer the distress call. It's a trap, but we can defeat it, I promise. Please, I'm begging - Allura, I'm begging. Don't make me do this one more time.”

The robotic voice keeps calmly speaking in the background. The other Paladins stare, waiting, as Allura lets herself down from the edge.

“You understand that I must cuff you, don't you?”

Her voice is raw and cold, and Keith nods. “Yes.”

“Allura-” Lance says, but Coran shakes his head at him.

Keith lets himself be cuffed - two glowing circles round his wrists, forcing them to stay within three centimetres of each other - and Allura gives him to Shiro to guard. And Lance knows why, he  _ knows _ why - it's because Keith is acting weird, and he's half-Galra, and he's telling them to fly into a trap. But it doesn't make any more sense to him, not really. It's nothing personal, he almost wants to say. It's nothing personal, but.

 

“Open the communication channel,” Allura instructs Coran. The screen flickers, and turns completely dark. Static noise filters through, sounding like the background hum of an engine through the speakers.

“Hailing, hailing,” says a low, rough female voice, “anybody, this is Lieutenant Commander Hiesl seeking assistance. My hull is breached and there has been a catastrophic technical failure on board. Hailing, hailing-”

“This is Princess Allura hailing from the Castle of Lions,” Allura cut in. “Identify yourself.”

“Oh, thank the gods,” the voice responded. “I am Lieutenant Commander Hiesl on board the S.S. Neread requesting immediate rescue-”

“You confirm that you are on board the Neread?” Allura asks, and the voice almost huffs. 

“Yes.”

Coran looks astounded. Allura continues speaking:

“Why can’t we see you?”

“My visual feeds are all broken. My ship is glitching out - oh, _keshir_ -” There’s a static boom from the audio feed. “I don’t have much time. I’ll send you my coordinates directly, just please-”

“Don’t you care who we are?”

“Quite frankly, you could be a tribe of cannibalistic tentacle monsters and I would accept your help, Princess Allura. No-!”

On that ominous note, the call cuts off. 

“We can’t help a Galra,” Allura says firmly. “We would be handing ourselves in.”

“We need to,” Keith interrupts quickly. “I know you don’t believe me, Allura, but none of you have any idea how important this is.” Allura is about to open her mouth, when Keith says: “I’ll go under eumentis and show you.”

“Eumentis... how do you know about that?” Coran says, blinking at Keith with new eyes. 

Lance has no idea what eumentis is, and by the looks on the other paladins’ faces, neither do they. 

Allura looks torn again, her heart being pulled in multiple directions all at once. “That’s... illegal, Keith. And immoral. It would be exposing the very depths of your mind, revealing everything - everything!”

“You’d see if I was a spy or not. I’m not afraid anymore.”

“No!” Allura and Coran both look horrified, so Pidge jumps in. 

“What’s eumentis?”

“It’s kind of like a truth serum,” Keith says, but Allura cuts in and says, “it’s more than that. It’s stripping back your mind and seeing everything underneath. It’s a very old, long forgotten ritual, which developed from... the worst parts of quintessence research. And it’s-”

“Possible,” interrupts Keith. “We can do it on the ship. I trust you all, but you don’t trust me. So I’d do it. I’d do it.”

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Shiro speaks up. 

“We have some choices. One: we assume Keith is a spy, or a traitor, or something has happened, and we ignore the distress call and focus on... on fixing him. Two: we assume Keith is a spy but respond to the call anyway, prepared for battle. Three: we trust Keith, and respond to the call. Or four... we use this eumentis method and find out the truth.”

“I’m not sure you get the gravity of using eumentis. It simply isn’t an option,” Coran says. “It’s not just seeing Keith’s thoughts on this matter - it’s seeing his everything. His innermost thoughts and fears, his conscious, his subconscious, everything that embarasses him, his past, his memories - it’s too much power to have over someone. If it were just a truth serum, then maybe, but if this really is just Keith, we’d be doing something unforgivable to him.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad,” Lance begins, but Coran shakes his head. 

“Imagine your most embarrassing memories, put into a big compilation video and played to all your close friends and families, interspersed with every negative thought you’ve had of them, as well as all the little secrets you’ve kept-”

“Alright, I get it.” Lance crosses his arms with a huff. Maybe it is  _ so bad _ after all.

"We don't know it will be like that for beings who aren't as attuned to their quintessence as Alteans are," Allura says, "but it's still a lot for someone to share."

Pidge raises their hand and clicks for attention. “This is something that puts us all at risk. Keith says its a trap - offers to go under mental torture to prove we should do it - and you still think he’s a spy? It wouldn’t be logical.”

“That’s what he wants us to think,” Hunk says, twisting his own fingers into a knot. “What if this is a bluff! He wants us to get complacent and think he isn’t a spy when he is and he’s waiting for us to relax-”

“I vote to believe him and respond,” Pidge interrupts, raising their hand even higher in the air. “We have our lions. We’ve fought off massive monsters and whole fleets before. We can handle whatever they throw at us.”

Allura frowns deeply, but Shiro nods, walking to stand beside Pidge. 

“We would have detected if Keith was kidnapped or replaced in the night. I think there’s something going on, and we need to believe him. I respect your caution, Allura, but I don’t want to put Keith through the eumentis.”

Allura stays firmly where she is, by the controls, and Hunk walks beside her. 

“No offense, Keith,” he mumbles, “but you’re acting weird and that distress call was dodgy as hell. So I think we should let this one be... and maybe stick you in a pod.”

Keith is counting again, Lance notices, except this time he’s counting the people on each side. Coran decides not to vote - he very deliberately steps back and away - leaving Lance to make the final decision. He looks from face to face, before finally settling on Keith. Keith, who of course is staring at him again. His purple eyes are so dark and calm, like no matter which way Lance votes, he already knows. Is that really Keith? Can he really trust the face he’s been staring at since he first arrived at the Garrison?

“Eumentis,” he says suddenly, surprising himself. “We should do eumentis.”

Keith doesn’t look like Lance just ordered an invasive and potentially scarring thing to happen - in fact, he looks relieved. 

“Lance, no-”

“Do it,” Keith says. “You only have an hour until things go irreparably wrong, we don’t have time to debate anymore. I completely agree and submit. Just hurry up.”

There’s that usual impatience and impulsivity, except somehow it feels tempered, stronger than usual.

“We don’t even know if it will work properly on humans, or... half humans.” Allura begins walking to a side room, motioning for the rest to follow. 

“It will,” Keith says. 

“What if it causes irreparable damage to your psyche?”

“Probably not.”

“You don’t know that.”

Keith nods, expression calm. “You’re right. But we all know it’s the best option here.”


	2. Dream Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im a really good author and this fic has been carefully planned out with the whole thing definitely making sense-
> 
>  
> 
> haha april fools

Coran insists the procedure take place in the medical bay, just in case something really does go terribly wrong and they have to stitch Keith’s mind back together. It seems that Allura knows the way to carry it out - falteringly, a harrowed expression on her face. 

“King Alfor outlawed this when he was young,” she explains, concentrating hard as they strap Keith into a chair. “For good reason. Too many people got hurt.”

 

The ritual involves Coran linking up the mind-meld circlets they had practiced with long ago into a medbay screen, placing one on Keith’s head and holding the other out. 

“We only need one person to, ah... read Keith’s mind. Preferably the same species, since the brain syncs up better that way, but given how that’s an impossibility right now then... a human would be best.”

“I will-” Shiro begins, but Keith shakes his head impatiently, the circlet jiggling on his head.    
“I want Lance.”

Lance colours, looking around the room nervously before looking back at Keith. “Me? You sure, bud?”

“Yes. I want you.”

Oh man, Lance is going to die from the intensity of how those words were spoken. Thank god Keith doesn’t know how much they affected him - ah, wait, he might. “I don’t-”

“It’ll be alright,” Coran says kindly. “You have a bit of an aptitude for empathising with people, Lance. Perhaps you’re the best one here for the job.”

Lance looks at Coran, looks at the floor, does not look at Keith, and looks at Coran again. “Alright. I guess. And I won’t be in danger?”

“Not as the observer. I will make sure the connection is only one way,” Allura says, placing the circlet on Lance’s head and sitting him gently in a nearby chair. “Now, for the sake of Keith’s dignity, try to concentrate solely on this situation. Don’t probe him for information that isn’t yours to take, Lance. We trust you-” Allura says, cutting off Lance’s protests, “but it goes without saying that I will not let either of you come to harm through this if I can help it.”

Lance finally looks at Keith, who has apparently been watching him with abject focus this whole time, and tries to deflect the strange jolt that thrilled him when he realised. 

“You ready for me to poke around and see what you really think of that hairstyle?  _ I’m kidding, I’m kidding, don’t take it off, princess. _ ”

Keith nods, once. “I’m ready.”

“Take deep breaths and say if you need to stop,” Allura says quietly, her hands coming to rest on both of the circlets, a warm glow ebbing from her palms into the circuitry. “We will now be asking you questions, Keith, while Lance monitors your thoughts to see if you’re lying.”

It feels... weird. Like someone just hit him round the back of the head and now he’s seeing double and tasting blood in his mouth - achey and loose, his brain trying to understand the new channel of information flooding into it. It’s hot, too, hot and warm and red. Lance’s vision is becoming red at the edges. 

 

“Keith, are you the Black Paladin?”

“Yes.”

Flames flicker down Lance’s spine, chasing down into his feet, sparking across the floor on the edges of his vision. It looks like fear, pride, and it smells like sweat. 

“I see something!” he cries out. “It’s so cool. Does anyone else see it?”

The other paladins confirm they don’t see anything unusual - this is all in Lance’s head. Allura continues. 

 

“Are you half-human, half-Galra?”

“Yes.”

The ceiling changes colour, becomes an inky black seeping down into the room, and Lance’s eyes dart around, wondering how nobody’s noticed. He looks at his own hand - and it’s purple, furred, tipped with black claws, the purple blotching and fading quickly as he turns it over. 

“Freaky,” he mumbles, and when he looks up, Keith has one yellow eye. “This is so weird.”

“What do you mean?” Allura asks sharply, and Lance struggles to form the words. 

“It’s like... everything you say, something changes in the room. I think it’s Keith thinking of the answer, but it’s getting translated into- oh fuck!”

There’s a soft golden glow diffusing through the black ceiling, and Lance blinks as rain hits his nose with stunning clarity. 

“It’s raining,” he breathes, wondrously, and Keith smiles. He really smiles. 

“No it’s not,” Pidge says, helpfully. “Wait, so is Keith imagining rain?”

“Kind of,” Keith answers. “It’s just that whenever I see Lance, I remember that he misses the rain most. His brain must be turning my memories into hallucinations.”

Lance blushes. He’s been doing that a lot recently. Unbidden, he remembers this morning, on loop in his brain like a stuck record - I love you, I love you, I love you...

He forcefully interrupts his own thoughts. “When you asked him if he was half-Galra, my hand turned purple and he got a yellow eye. I think that was a yes?”

“Hm.” Coran carefully monitors the screen of where the bodily functions of the two paladins is displayed, making sure their hearts beat regularly, their vitals are healthy, and neither of them are in distress. “In that case, we should ask Keith to imagine the answer to our questions as we say them. If there’s an incongruity between the two answers, we’ll know it’s a lie.”

“Good.” Allura clears her throat. “Now for the real questions.”

 

Lance sits up, but Keith just nods, patient this time. 

“Keith... have you been replaced or altered by the Galra?”

The room paints itself red. Everything is uniform and blank, painted by the same shade of red, including Keith - and excluding Shiro’s arm, which is a deep, oily black. 

“No.”

“Looks like it matches to me,” Lance confirms, assuming Keith is imagining the black oil as traces of the Galra empire. Red Allura nods. 

“Are you working with the Galra empire?”

Nothing in the room changes. 

“No.”

Lance gives a red thumbs up. This hallucination is pretty cool. 

“Are you aware of what kind of trap is awaiting us if we answer the distress call?”

The red bleeds away in an instant, and Lance gasps as the room suddenly opens up, the walls replaced with mirrors that shine out into the distance, growing dark until he can’t see any more reflections in the infinite copies of each of them. It doesn’t stop there. Lance looks up and sees infinite Alluras snaking away into the distance, flanked by a long line of Hunks, and Pidges, and Corans and Shiros, all identical, all in the exact same positions. When Lance looks behind him, there are a million Lances too, the backs of their heads twisted to see the backs of their heads twisted to see the backs of their heads twisted to see...

“Yes,” Keith answers, while Lance experimentally waves - and watches the conga line of Lances wave too in a long line. 

“What the hell am I looking at, Keith?”

“I can’t explain, but if we go and answer it, we can stop it from happening.”

“What happens if we answer the call? Can you give us details?”

The hallucination stops. Lance is staring at a wall. 

Keith sighs. “I can guide us on how to disable the trap and make sure nobody else gets trapped either.”

“So it’s like a mechanism?” Pidge butts in, fascinated. “Like a mousetrap?”

“Kind of.”

And Lance sees a mousetrap in front of him, but instead of cheese on the trap, it’s a digital clock that says 77:65. “Huh. Yeah, look at that.”

“And what happens if we don’t go?”

Lance screams. All of the infinite Lances are back, but this time they’re staring at him, eyes unforgiving, so he whirls round - and there are more, all around him, all staring, all motionless as statues, eyes with pinprick pupils piercing into him, and his skin physically prickles and goes stone cold -

“Bad, bad, fucking bad, holy shit, Keith what the fuck,” Lance yells, covering his eyes - but he still feels the stares so vividly that he knows the infinite Lances aren’t gone. “Imagine something else, please!”

“We get trapped,” Keith says simply, and Lance can hear the mousetrap spring from behind him. He keeps covering his eyes. 

There’s a gentle touch on his arm, and Hunk is hugging him, the sweet angel. Lance can feel the stares disappear one by one, and dares to open his eyes, shivering against Hunk’s warm touch. “What did you do? Keith? Stop!” Hunk yells.

“Imagine some fluffy bunnies!” Lance yells. “Sweet cute things!” Hunk’s hand suddenly is very soft and furry, and Lance looks up to see his face looking particularly chubby and fluffy, with great whiskers and even droopy rabbit ears. He grimaces. “Yeah, it’s probably a good thing nobody else can see this but me.”

Keith snorts, but Allura has no time for either of them. 

“Let’s not prolong this. Lance - is Keith lying?”

“Not that I can see,” Lance says, tearing his eyes away from bunny-Hunk - Hunny? Bunk? He’d workshop it later - to look at Keith. “I’m now super on board with going to the trap and disabling it, if that helps. What about everyone else?”

Allura and Coran start to carefully untangle Keith and Lance - but before they can finish, Lance realises desperately that this is his last chance to gain the whole, objective truth from Keith. “Wait!” he yells, even as his brain starts feeling the pressure loosen, even as the red starts seeping away from the edges of his vision, “Keith, did you mean it? What you said in the bathroom?”

Keith doesn’t say anything. He just smiles - a deep, happy smile, so unlike anything Lance has ever seen, just like the one he wore earlier. Lance swears he can see little purple hearts in his eyes, glimmering in the light. He blinks - Allura takes off the circlet, and the hearts are gone - but Keith is still smiling.

“Am I still hallucinating?” he mumbles as Coran scans both his and Keith’s brain for damage. 

“Shouldn’t be, lad,” Coran says chirpily, but Keith is still smiling. 

“Oh, okay,” Lance says, and then passes out.


End file.
